Die, Half-Hearted Clapper, Die!

From the official obituary, sort of, of Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un’s uncle and the second-most powerful man in North Korea, until he was summarily executed this week. Said the North Korean government:

The accused is a traitor to the nation for all ages who perpetrated anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of our party and state and the socialist system.
Jang was appointed to responsible posts of the party and state thanks to the deep political trust of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il and received benevolence from them more than any others from long ago.

He held higher posts than before and received deeper trust from supreme leader Kim Jong Un, in particular.
The political trust and benevolence shown by the peerlessly great men of Mt. Paektu were something he hardly deserved.

It is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty.

However, despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him.

From long ago, Jang had a dirty political ambition. He dared not raise his head when Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were alive. But, reading their faces, Jang had an axe to grind and involved himself in double-dealing. He began revealing his true colors, thinking that it was just the time for him to realize his wild ambition in the period of historic turn when the generation of the revolution was replaced.

Jang committed such an unpardonable thrice-cursed treason as overtly and covertly standing in the way of settling the issue of succession to the leadership with an axe to grind when a very important issue was under discussion to hold respected Kim Jong Un in high esteem as the only successor to Kim Jong Il in reflection of the unanimous desire and will of the entire party and army and all people.

When his cunning move proved futile and the decision that Kim Jong Un was elected vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea at the Third Conference of the WPK in reflection of the unanimous will of all party members, service personnel and people was proclaimed, making all participants break into enthusiastic cheers that shook the conference hall, he behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping, touching off towering resentment of our service personnel and people.

Applause! Applause!

In other news from the Juche paradise, 2013 was a banner year for the arts, according to the North Korean state press:

Lots of Famous Songs Created in DPRK in 2013

Pyongyang, December 10 (KCNA) — Lots of songs in praise of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and the socialist motherland have been created in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at a time when confidence in the WPK is growing deeper than ever before among the local people.
Among them is the song “Always under Party Flag”, a paean for the WPK and one of the masterpieces in the era of supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
For its high ideological and artistic value, the song evokes strong emotions for the party flag among the people, leading them to harden their will to remain loyal to the WPK.
A song titled “The Leader and the General Are Always Together” was created on the occasion of the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung, the Day of the Sun (April 15). For its ideological, emotional and philosophical profundity, the song well represents the honor of the Korean people advancing toward a rosy future under the blessing of Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, eternal leaders of the DPRK.
“Ode to the Motherland” is also one of the masterpieces created in the era of Songun. The song arouses feelings of ardent love for the socialist motherland, making one recall with deep emotion the great feats Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il performed on behalf of the country and the people. With fresh and passionate rhythms, it reflects the strong will of the Korean army and people to glorify their homeland.
All people in the DPRK say that the song is as valuable as National Anthem.
The song “Honor for Human Life” tells about the will of the Korean people to remain faithful to Kim Jong Un as well as about the revolutionary outlook on life.
“July 27 March”, “Tell, Fireworks of War Victory”, “Respects to Victors of Great Age” and “Holiday of Great War Victory” were also created this year to win a decoration commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War (July 27). The songs remind one of the history of Songun Korea which, under the leadership of the Generalissimos, had always won in the confrontation with the U.S.-led imperialists.
Inspired by those songs, the DPRK people are speeding up the building of a highly civilized socialist country under the guidance of Kim Jong Un.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 41 comments

41 Responses to Die, Half-Hearted Clapper, Die!

Instantly reminded me of this memorable passage from the Gulag Archipelago. It’s funny how, ever since I reading that account back in high school, I’ve so frequently recalled it to memory when attending official events and arriving at the polite smattering of applause at the conclusion.

On the long list of freedoms that one doesn’t fully appreciate until they’re lost, I suppose “the freedom to not clap” would belong closer to the top than might initially be guessed.

Kim Jong Un was considered too young to rule alone, so Jang Song Thaek was assigned to help in the transition. Now that Kim Jong Un firmly has his reigns on power he offs his uncle to eliminate a possible rival.

Harden writes that Shin’s “lower back and buttocks are scarred with burns from the torturer’s fire. The skin over his pubis bears a puncture scar from the hook used to hold him in place over the fire. His ankles are scarred by shackles, from which he was hung upside down in solitary confinement… His shins, from ankle to leg on both legs, are mutilated and scarred by burns from the electric barbed wire fence that failed to keep him inside Camp 14.”

Also, North Korea also punishes three generations – if you commit a crime against the state or the party you, your parents and your children are sent to the camps.

Reading this sort of stuff, and the less crazy but still over-the-top propaganda that sometimes comes from organs of the Chinese government, I’m always reminded of the writing style of a Hong Kong-born attorney at a firm where I worked for a few years.

His style was just so hyperbolic, and he would never listen when I would try to get him to tone it down. One time he insisted on writing a press release about a court ruling, and it really sounded like Chinese or North Korean propaganda. He never seemed to understand how funny it sounded to Americans. Sometimes I wonder if something (I don’t know exactly what, but something cultural) is lost in translation with these sorts of strident declarations that sound so ridiculously artificial to us.

Perhaps Kim Jung Un is trying to do an Ivan the Terrible here (he killed his own son), but there is more to this than just than pure paranoia.

I read somewhere else that there are opposing factions in the government on how much they should let China play a role in North Korea, Jang Song Thaek was pro China investments Jung Un not so much. My guess (what else can one do but guess about North Korean politics) is that Jung Un is a true believer in the hermit state, killing ones uncle is probably not such a big deal when concentration camps for entire families or forced abortions seem to happening there.

Instantly reminded me of this memorable passage from the Gulag Archipelago. . .

Edward Hamilton, I’m close to finishing Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder’s book about Nazi and Soviet atrocities in Eastern Europe, and this also immediately made me think of Stalinist theatrics. I was going to say it’s hard to believe this sort of thing is still going on in the 21st century, but that’s not quite it. This kind of cruelty is never going to go away, but it does stand out when it so clearly follows a 75 year-old model.

Only a counter-revolutionary imperialist would withhold metaphors from the loyal DPRK people. But the highly esteemed Kim Jong Un, who reigns over the ship of state like a flower growing upward toward the eternal sun which symbolizes the directing light of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, would deny the socialist motherland no culture victory. The porcine enemies of the DPRK workers offer the DPRK workers only one metaphor and keep all the others to themselves, being worse than feral goats. But the inspired leader Kim Jong Un, seeing that one metaphor is good, came to the historic realization that language too will benefit from the revolution if only the highly civilized DPRK people were to receive the valued beneficence of more than one metaphor at once. The will of the nation and the party rejoices at such a high artistic and ideological revelation, moving with unity into the future with every confidence in the true successor to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the thrice aesthetically talented Kim John Un.

2. An earlier commenter referred to Solzhenitsyn’s story in “Gulag” about the arrest of a Party official who was arrested after being the first to stop applauding after a tribute to the Leader. That story is in Volume 1 of “Gulag,” on pp. 69-70 of the paperback edition. (It’s in Chapter 2, “The History of Our Sewage Disposal System.”

how dare you ridicule the most important achievement of humanity? You capitalist, reactionary, anti-revolution traitor to the workers of the world. You deserve to be hanged from the highest tree on the earth!

North Korea is so sad. It would be in the long term best interests for the North Korean people if their government collapsed. But tremendously destabilizing to everyone country around them. China and South Korea would have refugees to deal with, and Japan would be nervous about a unified Korea. So the status quo remains.

I read “Escape from Camp 14” and “The Orphan Master’s Son” and have to agree with natural mom. It is hard to believe N. Korea exists in the modern world. As my therapist once said about a family member with ongoing bad behavior patterns, the latest story is shocking but not surprising.

I’ve always had a taste for totalitarian music. One of the first records I fell in love with was of the Red Army Choir. This was before age 10. Later on I discovered goodies from other equally or even more diabolical regimes. Now thanks the Internet I can get them all for free. Maybe if the two songs linked to in the above post by Devinicus were done by a military band, they might be more stirring, but they don’t do as much for me as “The Sacred War” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK2lNuiD7gM or even better this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Ry2wtYVZY. Or the Varshavianka. I know you’re not supposed to like the Horst Wessel Lied but it’s a rousing tune if sung the right way. It’s just too bad about the gang that sang it and the lyrics. If anyone has favorite and perhaps obscure totalitarian music, I would love to add to my collection. It’s great stuff for motivating me when I’m trying to do housework.

Behind all the Byzantine rhetoric, Uncle thought he was going to be the power behind the throne, and nephew is showing everyone who’s boss. With 20/20 hindsight, the only reason Kim Il Sung tried communism is because it would get him guns and stuff from the USSR. This family in-fighting is about as significant on point of principle as the Wars of the Roses.